Three perfectly executed stories from one of Japan's most beloved writers showcase the exquisitely tuned talent of Yasushi Inoue. The writer describes each character and landscape with a lucid, deft tenderness. In the title story, the narrator, who is supposed to be writing a biography of a famous artist, becomes obsessed instead with the wasted life of the man who forged his paintings. In his typically understated way, Inoue probes into the difference between fact and fiction, and how the 'fake' can sometimes become more important than the original